hicks@WALKER-EMH.ARPA (Gregory Hicks COMFLEACTS) (02/21/88)
Info-IBMPC Digest Sat, 20 Feb 88 Volume 7 : Issue 15
This Week's Editor: Gregory Hicks -- Chinhae Korea <hicks@walker-emh.arpa>
Today's Topics:
Bible on disk wanted (King James Version) (2 msgs)
File I/O and Slow Windows
Fortran -> C translator needed
MSC Danger (was: Turbo C vs Quick C) (3 msgs)
MS Kermit 2.30 and Serial Port
NROFF-like DOS formatter
PIBTERM v4.0.6. - can't send nulls Solution
Turbo C vs Quick C (2 msgs)
Voice mail cards for PCs
Mathematical word processing/typesetting
Today's Queries:
Calculating Phases of the Moon
Expanded Memory (EEMS or LIM)
Memory Allocation Code Needed to Use with MSC
Traping Runtime System Errors under MSC
40Mb Disk for the Compaq Portable II
Using MS-Windows on an Amstrad 1640
UUDECODE: spurious character exchange
Info-IBMPC Lending Library is available from:
Bitnet via server at CCUC; and from SIMTEL20.ARPA (see file
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INFO-IBMPC BBS Phone Numbers: (213) 827-2635 and (213) 827-2515
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Date: Sun, 14 Feb 88 23:26 EST
From: <AC011021%YUVULCAN.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Bible on disk wanted (King James Version)
I'm presently taking a history course which involves some biblical text
readings and must do an essay that will also use the bible as an
historical source. Does anyone know of a program that has the bible (King
James version) on disk and also has a good system of finding references to
specific characters, events, etc. I'd prefer something in PD/shareware,
but am quite willing to consider commercial programmes. Any names of
software and your opinions would be welcome.
Thanks,
Dave Klein.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 88 5:28:59 GMT
From: Gregory Hicks COMFLEACTS <hicks@walker-emh.arpa>
Subject: Bible on disk wanted (King James Version)
Dave:
There are quite a few offerings for this type of software in the back
pages of the 'PC Magazine' ... Cost: usually less than $150 (US)...
Here's one:
Scott-Sinclair TOPICAL Bible
(Concordance $50 extra)
from: Scott-Sinclair
4567 James
Ft Worth, Texas 76115
------------------------------
Date: 12 Feb 88 20:19:37 GMT
From: Devin_E_Ben-Hur@cup.portal.COM
Subject: File I/O and Slow Windows
Turbo C 1.5 includes screen output functions that will write directly to
the screen map. The upgrade is $33.50, free if you buy the Run time
library source.
------------------------------
Date: 14 Feb 88 06:06:46 GMT
From: "Bill.Stewart" <wcs@ho95e.ATT.COM>
Subject: Fortran -> C translator needed
brucec@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Bruce Church) writes:
: Does anyone know where I can find a fortran to C translator
: that will run on unix ( UTX or Ultrix ). I have the fortran source
: code for a large set of very useful numerical routines called
: Numerical Recipes that are public domain.
: Bruce Church brucec@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu
1) Are you really sure they're public domain? There's a book by that
title, which says you can order the software from them in machine-readable
format; I assume your code is from them. If you read the preface, it
talks about the copyright status of the programs in the book. I don't
have it handy, but the gist of it was that - The code was *NOT* public
domain - You, the reader, were granted permission to make *ONE*
machine-readable copy for personal use, but that more than that was
unfriendly and maybe illegal - They'd be happy to sell you
machine-readable copies. In particular, this means you should check out
the copyright notices explicitly before you do anything like give copies
away or sell them. They give a mailing address in Cambridge Mass.
2) There is a program called Fortix commercially available; I've forgotten
who sells it, but look for the ads in UNIX Review. The current versions
are supposed to be pretty effective; I'm not sure how well they handle
non-standard Fortran (e.g. stuff that *knows* how IBM 370's Fortran-IV
implemented character storage), but they should work fine for the stuff in
the Numerical Recipes book.
3) If you can afford to buy Fortrix (which is probably reasonably priced
for commercial software, but certainly isn't free), you're probably close
enough to the boundaries of "fair use" that you'd better check out the
copyright rights for the software.)
4) They also provide the programs in Pascal; if you find they do them in
C, please let me know.
Thanks;
Bill Stewart,
AT&T Bell Labs 2G218, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ihnp4!ho95c!wcs
------------------------------
Date: 13 Feb 88 06:03:23 GMT
From: William Phillips <wfp@dasys1.uucp>
Subject: MSC Danger (was: Turbo C vs Quick C)
wew@naucse.UUCP (Bill Wilson) writes:
> Turbo C is superior to Quick C. On our campus here we have also
> had Quick C blow away hard drives, so be careful.
I know of a case where MSC (4.0 I think) utterly scrambled a hard drive
(not backed up, natch), when a module compiled with one memory model was
linked with modules compiled with a different model. I've forgotten the
exact details, but I saw what was left of the directories after the
program was run -- total garbage. So watch out for that one!
William Phillips {allegra,philabs,cmcl2}!phri\
Big Electric Cat Public Unix {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!wfp
New York, NY, USA (-: Just say "NO" to OS/2! :-)
------------------------------
Date: 14 Feb 88 20:50:49 GMT
From: "Timothy L. Kay" <tim@csvax.caltech.EDU>
Subject: MSC Danger (was: Turbo C vs Quick C)
In article <2946@dasys1.UUCP> wfp@dasys1.UUCP (William Phillips) writes:
>In article <567@naucse.UUCP>, wew@naucse.UUCP (Bill Wilson) writes:
>> Turbo C is superior to Quick C. On our campus here we have also
>> had Quick C blow away hard drives, so be careful.
>
>I know of a case where MSC (4.0 I think) utterly scrambled a hard drive
>(not backed up, natch), when a module compiled with one memory model was
>linked with modules compiled with a different model. I've forgotten the
This can happen with *any* C compiler that uses the large model. Once you
allow the compiler to generate code that messes with the segment
registers, you open yourself up for much more destructive bugs. If you
break the rules and link large model with small model, who knows what is
going to happen? Suppose the result is that your bug scribbles all over
low memory, exactly where some sectors from the FAT happens to be. Then
the program bombs. Your next disk write will scribble in random places on
the disk because the in-core copy of the FAT sectors has been clobbered.
The only solution is to stick to small models or get some memory
protection ala Unix/386.
Tim
------------------------------
Date: 15 Feb 88 01:42:53 GMT
From: James R Vallino <jrv@siemens.uucp>
Subject: MSC Danger (was: Turbo C vs Quick C)
In article <2946@dasys1.UUCP> wfp@dasys1.UUCP (William Phillips) writes:
>I know of a case where MSC (4.0 I think) utterly scrambled a hard drive
>(not backed up, natch), when a module compiled with one memory model was
>linked with modules compiled with a different model. I've forgotten the
>exact details, but I saw what was left of the directories after the
>program was run -- total garbage. So watch out for that one!
>
To be somewhat fair to Microsoft, especially since the "exact details"
were forgotten, this type of thing can easily occur with ANY C program
which uses large data, that is segment:offset pointers. You can get it to
happen even when you link the correct library. The problem is with the
hardware and operating system (or in this case the programmer) not the
compiler. A program running under MS-DOS can get to any memory location in
the 1 MByte memory space in which MS-DOS runs. This includes overwriting
critical sections of the operating system, such as the file allocation
table (FAT). Once this is trashed and a program does another write to disk
then you better hope that the Gods are on your side.
The situation which seemed to cause this most frequently was inexperienced
C programmers writing code which ended up using pointers which were NULL.
These then read from low memory and got garbage other data which ended up
trashing the FAT. My boss was not pleased when it was his system that got
trashed the first time this problem surfaced. So if you want to blame a
compiler then blame ALL the C compilers for not providing an option to
check for use of NULL pointers at runtime. (The MSC V5.0 compiler is the
first C compiler I have ever worked with which does have this option.) --
Jim Vallino
Siemens Research and Technology Lab.,Princeton, NJ
CSNET: jrv@siemens.siemens-rtl.com UUCP:
{ihnp4,philabs,seismo}!princeton!siemens!jrv
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 88 08:12:57 CST
From: ibmpc@ncsc.ARPA (Norman)
Subject: MS Kermit 2.30 and Serial Port
Someone recently posted a problem about using MS Kermit on an EaZy-PC; the
current documentation for MS Kermit version 2.30 states:
"Because of the many new features in the version 2.30....performance
during terminal emulation is a few percent slower than in 2.29. For
instance, on a PC/AT, version 2.29 could run VT102 emulation at 19200 baud
without requiring Xon/Xoff flow control, whereas 2.30 may require flow
control at that speed (but not at 9600 baud). If the host computer does
not support Xon/Xoff, then characters can be lost during terminal
emulation at high speeds....The PS/2 Models 25 and 30 may lose characters
at 9600 baud in the absence of Xon/Xoff flow control...."
Hope this helps. From MSKERM.BWR, MS-DOS Kermit 2.30 "Beware File."
------------------------------
Date: 15 Feb 88 12:29:13 EST (Monday)
From: marty <Leisner.Henr@Xerox.COM>
Subject: NROFF-like DOS formatter
Allen Holub's version of nroff is reasonably good.
It is 29.95 from DDJ (M&T publishing). It runs on Ms/Dos.
I bought it in December. I've been relatively happy with it, although it
does have some limitations and quirks. It implements the ms macro set.
I really don't know much about nroff but I wanted to be able to display
roffed documents on my pc -- its been very satisfactory for this. Also,
it comes with a decent manual.
I've used a few PD roff's with unsatisfactory results.
It comes with the C source and is reasonably Unix compatible.
marty
ARPA: leisner.henr@xerox.com
GV: leisner.henr
NS: martin leisner:henr801c:xeox
------------------------------
Date: Sunday, 14 February 1988 09:59-MST
From: PIB@NUACC.ACNS.NWU.EDU
Subject: PIBTERM v4.0.6. - can't send nulls Solution
To send nulls in PibTerm, define a function key to have the contents "^@",
that is, an ascii 94 followed by an ascii 64. Hit the function key to
send the null.
------------------------------
Date: 12 Feb 88 17:17:41 GMT
From: mark <mr@homxb.uucp>
Subject: Turbo C vs Quick C
wew@naucse.UUCP (Bill Wilson) writes:
>
> Educators can pick up Turbo C for $39.95 directly from
> Borland. Most of the articles I have read indicate that
> Turbo C is superior to Quick C. On our campus here we have also
> had Quick C blow away hard drives, so be careful.
>
> Bill Wilson
I also had quick C blow away my drive. It wrote all over the FAT table.
The program was as simple as you can get :
fp = fopen(.. some file ..)
fclose(fp);
Fortunately, I had another copy of the FAT table and was able to recover
after only 4 hours of panic.
mark
homxb!mr
------------------------------
Date: 14 Feb 88 19:13:01 GMT
From: John Robinson <robinson@dalcsug.uucp>
Subject: Turbo C vs Quick C
Kumar_Swaminathan.SVSantaClara@Xerox.COM writes:
> All things considered as for as capabilities (lack of them), I recommend
> quick c., based on following 3 points:
>
> 1. "Quick"/"Turbo" means one thing: No serious optimization. At least with
> quick C, It is compatible with ms's "real" C compiler. So i can use qc to
> develop,and build the program with reg. c compiler for production.
>
Be that as it may, the postings I have seen indicate very little
difference in execution time between TurboC and MSC 5.0.
> 2. Turbo C has no debugger, while qc does.
This is true. My experience with Microsoft languages included
Microsoft Fortran v 4.0. This includes CodeVeiw which is a very nice
debugger. However, I prefer to use debuggers to find errors in MY
programs, not THEIR compiler! Also, Borland has announced a debugger to
TurboC in the 'first quarter of 88'. Till then the one posted on
compuserve will do fine. So, for that matter, will Codeview which comes
with MASM 5.0.
>
> 3.qc is from Microsoft, and for whatever it's worth it is a big name com-
pany, as for as future considerations (With other compilers from MS).
I guess you failed to notice that Borland has shipped over 500,000
copies of Turbo Pascal. Also, they shipped over 30,000 copies of TurboC
in the first WEEK. They now claim over 100,000 copies. I'm sure that
Borland is heartbroken, given this, that you don't consider them a 'big
name company' :-).
> Finally, of course it depends on the application that u want to
> develop with either of compilers.. If u can buy each of 'em for about 60
> bucks, why not buy both of them, and evaluate yourself?
This is very good advice even if the English is a little weak!
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 88 22:25:33 EST
From: Chris Schmandt <geek@MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Voice mail cards for PCs
Here's a couple of cards that do audio record/playback and include a basic
phone line interface. Note that the latter is analog and will not, of
course, work with digital PBXs such as Rolm.
Dialog/2 from Dialogic (Parsipanny, NJ). Does ADPCM (Adaptive Delta PCM)
speech coding at 16 - 32 K bits per second, phone line interface, DTMF
decode. Costs about $450. There's also a 4 line card for about $1000
(rough guess).
TI Speech card with phone line interface. Does lots of stuff, such as
speech coding at 2.4 K to 32 K bits/second, advanced phone functions (good
call progress), DTMF, speech recognition and synthesis. Cost about $1K,
plus $300 for phone card (a daughter board) plus about $300 for their run
time libraries.
Natural Microsystems (Dedham, MA) Watson card. Card and some mediocre
application software is less then $300 I think. Includes phone line
interface. Also includes 1200 baud modem code. Application developers
toolkit is extra, I don't know much about it.
I've done extensive work with the Dialog/2 and TI card. Played just a bit
with the Watson, but haven't written any code for it.
chris
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 88 08:25:36 PST
From: danny@Ford-wdl1.ARPA (Daniel Abramovitch)
Subject: Mathematical word processing/typesetting
In my opinion, the best mathematical word processing package is LaTeX.
LaTeX (pronounced 'la tek', not latex) is a set of macros which makes the
TeX typesetting system usable by us humans.
LaTeX has many features which make it the mathematical typsetting language
of choice, most notably, portability. It is available on just about every
computer made, including MS-DOS machines, Macs, any Unix machine (i.e.
Sun, Vaxen, etc.), VMS, TOPS-20, even IBM mainframes. Furthermore, most
of the versions of this are PUBLIC DOMAIN. On the Suns and anything
running X-windows, an extensive set of previewers exists that allows one
to see the output before it is printed. Furthermore, there is a large set
of printer drivers including Postscript, Imagen, HP, and Epson.
The LaTeX input file that works on MS-DOS will also work on Unix, IBM,
etc. because it is simply an ascii file. The typesetting commands are
patterned after Scribe in the sense that they are as close to English as
possible. Furthermore, it is possible to imbed Postscript, Imagen or
whatever files in the output.
Unfortunately, the public domain releases have not yet been ported to
MS-DOS or the Macs, so one has to buy LaTeX (and TeX) from Addison Wesley.
For the PC, there are two versions: Micro-TeX (Addison Wesley) and PC-Tex
(someone else -- see Byte magazine for adds). For the Mac, the release is
called TeXtures (Addison Wesley).
I am not unbiased. I've been using LaTeX for 2 1/2 years (my thesis and
several technical papers have been done in LaTeX). I seriously couldn't
think of using anything else.
-- Danny
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 88 10:59:14 GMT
From: Gregory Hicks COMFLEACTS <hicks@walker-emh.arpa>
Subject: Calculating Phases of the Moon
While I was an under-grad at the University of Utah many moons ago, I used
a program called 'calendar' that allowed you to make a calendar that
started on whatever day of the week you wanted your week to start on (Mon,
Tue, etc), allowed you to list important days by specifying the date, or
day of the week and frequency (ie: every other Monday or Every Monday).
This calendar program figured out what day of the week the year started on
by calculating what date in March/April Easter fell on (this is based on
the phase of the moon...) and then counting backwards an appropriate
number of days (calculating back really...)
This calculation was based on something called 'The Golden Number' and was
part of a programming problem given to beginning programming students...
The algorithm was correct after the calendar changed from the Julian
Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar... (Before that, you had to take into
account the number of days that were 'lost' in the change...
I would like very much to get my hands on this program because... First I
have a requirement to calculate phases of the moon, second, I want to port
it to another system, and LASTLY, I need the verbage that describes the
'History' of the Gregorian Calendar...
Anybody have any idea where it might be found? The guy that wrote it (I
THINK) was Carl M. Ellison. Unfortunately, I don't know where to find him
anymore because it HAS BEEN over 17 years since I left there...
Regards,
Gregory Hicks
<hicks@walker-emh.arpa>
------------------------------
Date: 15 Feb 88 19:39:49 GMT
From: iisat!brentn@uunet.UU.NET (Brent Newsome)
Subject: Expanded Memory (EEMS or LIM)
I recently heard from some local people that they had seen a program
that emulated expanded memory of some sort (eg. in addition to 640k) using
the Lotus or EEMS systems. It emulated this memory by using disk space.
I currently have an IBM PC and plenty of disk space and a full 640K but
I find that I often do not have room in memory for several *LARGE* 1-2-3
or symphony files. So this program (if it exists) and even if it is slow
would be perfect for my work needs.
If anybody knows of such a thing could you email me a note and then
email me a copy of the program.
Thanks,
Brent Newsome International Information Service (IIS)
UUCP: {uunet,utai,watmath}!dalcs!iisat!brentn
------------------------------
Date: 13 Jan 1988 13:39-EST
From: MHARRIS@G.BBN.COM
Subject: Memory Allocation Code Needed to Use with MSC
I am having lots of trouble with calloc() and friends under Microsoft C
4.0, and would like to acquire a solid allocator without having to write
it (does anyone know if the allocation problems are fixed in MSC 5.0, or
am I just asking for more and different bugs?). So if you can supply or
direct me to a simple but bug-free allocator implementation (I just need
calloc() malloc() free()), free or inexpensive, I would greatly appreciate
it. Thanks.
-- Michael Harris MHarris@G.BBN.COM (617) 873-3794
[Doug Gywn'c alloca.c is available from SIMTEL20.arpa in file
PD1:<unix>alloca.c ... I've looked at it, and it seems to do what you
want. gph]
------------------------------
Date: 13 Jan 1988 13:43-EST
From: MHARRIS@G.BBN.COM
Subject: Traping Runtime System Errors under MSC
Can anyone tell me how to trap Microsoft C "serious runtime errors", e.g.,
"Error 2000 Stack Overflow", before they print to the terminal screen? I
want to deal with them myself in the code that evoked the offending .EXE
file (with system()). Thanks.
-- Michael Harris MHarris@G.BBN.COM (617) 873-3794
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1988 18:59 EST
From: sidney%acorn@oak.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: 40Mb Disk for the Compaq Portable II
We are desperately looking for a way to get 40Mb of hard disk in a Compaq
Portable II. Fujitsu beta tested a version which has proved to be highly
unreliable. Perhaps that's why it is no longer on the market. We have
followed a number of false leads -- If you know of any disk/interface
combination that will work on a Portable II, please let me know. Thanks.
Sidney Markowitz <sidney%acorn@oak.lcs.mit.edu>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 88 17:27:27 GMT
From: Donal O'Mahony <DOMAHONY%IRLEARN.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Using MS-Windows on an Amstrad 1640
Has anybody succeeded in getting MS-Windows Ver 1.3 working with an
Amstrad 1640 PC Clone's mouse. I have tried setting it up to be every
possible mouse that can be specified in installation, but nothing doing.
The same mouse works perfectly with Microsoft Word
------------------------------
Date: 15-FEB-1988 12:31:15
From: MARCUS@MOLE.PCL.AC.UK
Subject: UUDECODE: spurious character exchange
I have recently downloaded UUDECODE.BAS and an uuencoded file from
the archives at SIMTEL20 but have been unable to decode the file due to
what I believe is a spurious character replacement by the network. The
character giving the problem is the accent ^ (ASCII 126). Does anyone know
if this is the problem, and if so what character should I replace it by in
the uuencoded file?
- m a r c u s -
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